Should online games in the future provide a user-driven legal system to keep things in line? Will publishers of online titles suddenly be forced to face the reality that people are making money off their games rather than the other way around? Will there be a massive insurgence of lawsuits against this new online cash exchange? How about a massive insurgence of lawsuits against publishers of buggy games? Should gamers have the rights to their online possessions (including the rights to sell them) just because they've poured hours into the game?

Are you watching the Tennessee game? This one is pretty interesting. Let's see what the Titan's do. I'm hoping they win this one, as I wanted them to take the Super Bowl against the Rams a while back. I dunno, the Pats are tough. And man, it looks COLD.

That's a beautiful way to go. Shot by Yot. In more ways than one. -mgns

Will publishers of online titles suddenly be forced to face the reality that people are making money off their games rather than the other way around?

The universe would implode inward upon itself a billion times if we ever see such a thing. Now, I'm talking about farming of generic content and that sort of thing - not saying talented or well-executed individuals cannot/do not justifiably profit from certain situations relating to any sort of video game.

Would it be better to have the company in charge of the data as the escrot or a third party? What would be more or less secure? Which is more or less law suit-prone?

Depends on how you define "better." Either way you slice it, your customer service costs are going to skyrocket, as will your legal burden. On top of that, you'd have the whole issue of how to categorize/rate objects to determine intrinsic and dollar value.

On the latter, for instance: In AC, there's a third-party app called "Bandit Sight." What this app does is "grade" the relative "uberness" of weapons based on an algorithm. It does this by calculating how many modifications a given weapon can have; what the base stats are for damage, attack mods, and defense mods; and any "stat-boosting" spells it has on it that increase the "maximum" base damage or modifiers. This lets the player know, on a relative and objective scale, how "good" any given piece of weapon loot is.

So what's the value? If a weapon scores 80%, 85%, 90%, 95%, how much is it worth in dollars? How much is it worth in dollars if it started 80% but a player modified it to 85%? What happens if it blows up when a player tries to modify it further? Can the player buy insurance for it? If not, why not? How much does that cost? How does the player file a claim? How is the loss documented? How is the loss researched? How much time will the company have to replace the item? How about if the item gets eaten by a bug? If the player gives it away but reports it stolen? If the server crashes, or exploits force a rollback, how is the company going to prove a player didn't have an item he's claiming he got in the time the rollback happened? How is the company going to deal with shared accounts, account cracking, ebay sales? Who's responsible for the sale if the seller doesn't follow through with a sale or trade? How do you prove the seller is who he says he is? How about the buyer?

And on the item replacement thing: Many game companies are wising up to the "lost item" claims, and are not giving their admins the ability to create items at all. (UO learned this one the hard way.) And if they do have the ability to create items at will, that opens a whole other field of employment layer--who watches the watchers? Because if items are worth real money, and there are select people that can create items at will... doesn't take a genius to figure out how that's gonna work. If virtual items are going to be worth real money, all of the real-world physical-item rules are pretty much going to have to apply. Modified, to be sure, but they'll have to apply. Or the EULA's going to be 95 pages of legalese. Or both. Not to mention the whole "secure server" issue.

Too much headache, too little payoff.

And yes, I can smell the scrollwheels burning right now.

By this time tomorrow we can be doing BODY SHOTS off HOOKERS in some MEXICAN HELLHOLE

The big customer service issue that comes up with sales of this type is when somebody's cheated. "I bought a Long Sword of Slaying on eBay for $40 and he didn't give it to me!" or "I bought this account then he reported it stolen and took it back!" and so on. That's the big thing you'd avoid if you handled everything internally, and as a bonus you'd be able to charge charge a fee for the service.

Whether you're really better off in the long term is a whole other matter. Officially saying anything other than "don't do that" leads to questions like are you responsible for lost income when the server crashes and the last ten minutes aren't saved... which is troublesome.

Stupid ass Patriots. They are just such a bland team. I find very little dynamic or exciting about them. They are very consistent and methodical, a coach's dream, yet they are boring to watch. Not to mention that the Titans are the closest thing AL will probably ever get to a Pro team; so pttthhh!! Guess it's back to rooting for the Pack. I'm hoping for a Pack/Patriot Super Bowl now. My roomate and I are having a bunch of people over for the games later; grilling out, football, beers...should be fun.

Also, pounders of Beck's rock the house down, fo' shizzle, etc. whatever all that stuff means.

Will publishers of online titles suddenly be forced to face the reality that people are making money off their games rather than the other way around?

In that case, what would the motivation be for the publisher to release the game? Also, should publishers/developers not be allowed to have a choice in whether they allow players to make money off the game? Because if players can make money off of playing a game, aren't there tax issues involved?

Should gamers have the rights to their online possessions (including the rights to sell them) just because they've poured hours into the game?

Good question, and I think: no. There's nothing wrong with a publisher making the choice to give players the rights to their virtual possessions, but I don't think it should be mandatory for a publisher to give away the rights of the things players amass. Issues such as: the IP (names, images and stats of items aren't made by the players in most MMORPG's), and where to draw the line, come up.

If people should be allowed to make money off their user accounts or items they found, because they stand for a certain amount of time invested in the game, shouldn't the same also go for high scores?
Then again, I never heard anyone demand that their Monopoly-houses and hotels get turned into actual real estate on the locations where they bought them in the game.

So what about companies taking a hands-off, do-at-your-own-risk approach? I haven't kept up with PIGs, but is this what they're doing now, or are they still trying to get rid of the auctions and whatnot?

Also, I agree with everything crash said. The whole idea is nothing more than a giant headache for publishers with very little reward for the hassle. It's not going to fly in any significant way. We'll just see the usual ebay auctions and things like that, as we do now. EOD!

Paul Molitor has chose to be inducted in the Hall of Fame as a Brewer. I think that is just one of the coolest things anyone could do. Molitor was the end of real classic baseball in Milwaukee and I'm very surprised at his choice, considering how he was treated by the Brewers owners/GM when he left.

OK, so I was trawling through those doctored Dilberts, and I come to the Japanese one. I think to myself: "Now that goes too far." Now I'm feeling paranoid that the horrors of the Intarweb has weakened my threshold for offensive content so far that there are some outrages I am not phased by any more. Then I read the Jewish one and was comforted by the fact that anti-Semitism still makes me angry.

This is an extension of that topic, as it relates to more than just Second Life. Don't like it? Write your own.

Sometimes when I'm in a difficult situation I ask, "What Would Jesus Do?" And always a little voice inside me answers, "Well, he probably wouldn't try to cram *another* corpse into the crawl-space, moron."

Sometimes when I'm in a difficult situation I ask, "What Would Jesus Do?" And always a little voice inside me answers, "Well, he probably wouldn't try to cram *another* corpse into the crawl-space, moron."

Anyone else here read the new Dark Tower book? I bought it at 10:00 on Friday night, and finished it at 5:30am today (I am largely unable to put down a book once I start reading it), and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm curious what other people's thoughts are, since web reviews are mixed, and I have friends who strongly disliked it.